Though critics often compared Virginia Woolf’s nonlinear, almost cubist narratives to the then-burgeoning cinema’s use of montage, close-ups, flashbacks, tracking shots, and rapid cuts, the strength of Woolf’s novels lay in the rhythm of her arresting style, and in her heroines’ poignant and melancholic musings, which insidiously seep through the…
After a quick scan of a list of the past lectures presented by the Eclectic Viewpoint, it’s hard to resist the temptation to denounce the organization as mere coattail riders, snake-oil salesmen preying on the neo-conspiracy theorists who spend their time prowling anti-government chat rooms and their money on X-Files…
The American reissues of Jackie Chan films have met with declining box-office success since Chan burst onto the scene in 1996 with Rumble in the Bronx. With any luck, the latest Chan opus to be recut and redubbed for Americans, the year-old Mr. Nice Guy, should reverse the trend. No…
If ever there was an Op-Ed movie–a movie destined to be written about in an “elevated” realm beyond just the movie pages–it’s Primary Colors. Thanks to Monica Lewinsky and Paula Jones, the Hollywood/Washington nexus has lifted this new Mike Nichols picture, based on the 1996 bestseller by Joe Klein, into…
thursday march 19 Locally based documentary filmmaker Cynthia Salzman Mondell has done a Mike Wallace on one of the most exclusive and secretive realms of public life–the Amazonian domain of the ladies’ restroom. The Ladies’ Room is her new seriocomic documentary about the conflicts and confidences that occur when female…
One more time: Dallas ain’t Cowtown. Never was. Fort Worth is. The old cattle drive routes were west of here, but ever since Trammell Crow dropped a bronze stampede in downtown Dallas, the culture hounds’ arguments over the city’s cowboy history have erupted again. Why? Because everyone wants in on…
They crowded around Dennis Rodman until it seemed as though they were suffocating him with their cameras and questions. He spoke as he dressed, covering himself in a vomit-yellow silk shirt and a red crushed-velvet hat and dark wrap-around shades to block out the blinding TV lights. The reporters–and there…
Can I compose a critical mash note to Dallas actor Terry Martin, star of the Texas premiere of Dan Butler’s The Only Thing Worse You Could Have Told Me, that doesn’t sound foolish? Probably not, but any such effort would contain some sentiment like: It’s hard as hell to make…
In print advertisements for its current production, Dallas Theater Center declares Eugene O’Neill’s 1940 Long Day’s Journey Into Night to be America’s greatest play. Leaving aside the strained hyperbole of calling any piece of art the greatest in its field, there are certainly other contenders for this specious honor, from…
The John Grisham industry has claimed another heavyweight. A few months back, Francis Ford Coppola delivered up John Grisham’s The Rainmaker, and now Robert Altman sails into view with The Gingerbread Man, based on an “original” Grisham screen story–although it’s basically a recycling of other Grisham recyclings. Who would have…
On the surface, Chairman of the Board, the film debut of comedian Carrot Top, seems perfectly aimed at young, creative, slacker types. It’s about a bumbler who accidentally makes it big in business, and its plot can be summed up as “Technicolor Gen-X freak conquers the business world without really…
thursday march 12 Raymond Nasher: You may know him as the filthy-rich Dallas bigwig who owns more than 250 artworks by Rodin, Picasso, and de Kooning. But businessman-art lover Raymond Nasher is a key player in the revitalization of the downtown Dallas Arts District, which means his expertise in the…
PORT CHARLOTTE, Fla.–The voice is loud and off-key, and it can be heard above the stereo blasting bad rock and roll through the locker room. “SHE TALKS TO FUCKIN’ ANGELS!” The man singing along with the Black Crowes’ awful anthem looks around and grins, like a kid trying to rustle…
We’re living in a world where Dilbert creator Scott Adams, supposed hero of the corporate grunt and Office Depot shill, has gone on the record with a major national newsmagazine with the comment that, ya know, downsizing may not be such a bad thing after all. Actually, you could argue…
Jeff Bridges is so euphorically wacked as a social dropout in The Big Lebowski that you get a secondhand high just looking at him. Padding around Venice, California, in a T-shirt that barely covers his midriff bulge, he’s like a beach bum who bowls instead of surfs. His nickname is…
A movie starring Paul Newman, Susan Sarandon, Gene Hackman, James Garner, and Stockard Channing ought to be a whole lot better than Robert Benton’s Twilight. It’s one of those “autumnal” movies about a private detective who is too old for the game but still goes through the motions. Benton, in…
thursday march 5 The Only Thing Worse You Could Have Told Me: Forget all those straight actors reviving their careers playing “the good gay neighbor.” The real revolution is an openly gay man playing a chick-hungry hetero: Dan “Bulldog” Butler does it every couple of episodes on NBC’s priceless sitcom…
Dennis Green, the head coach of the Minnesota Vikings, does not need statistics to tell him that the National Football League is a whites-only club when it comes to hiring head coaches. Green is one of only three black head coaches in the entire 30-team league, even though more than…
If you’re Anglo, you might approach a night of theater titled Latin American Evening with the smug assumption of someone who knows what’s inside the tamale before you even unroll the corn husk. It’s a mindset whites would never have when confronting a show called “Anglo-Saxon Evening,” but then again,…
Dangerous Beauty presents a 16th-century Venice filled with statesmen who hop from bed to bed without fear of “bimbo eruptions.” That’s because the courtesans aren’t bimbos, and they aren’t hidden: Everyone from the admiralty to the bishopric patronizes them. Having developed their minds along with their erotic skills, they’re boon…
His eye trained on the manic collision of Catholicism and consumerism, Pedro Almodovar has made some of the most lively, genre-bending films of the last two decades. The commander of a visual style that emphasizes bright primary colors and bold geometry, he’s in love with the glittering surfaces of pop-culture…
The science-fiction works of the late, great Philip K. Dick haven’t been served particularly well on screen. The most recent adaptation, Screamers, was junk; Total Recall had its moments, but was less ingenious by half than the short story it was based upon. Blade Runner, of course, was brilliant, but…
